Ligustrum

Japanese privet is a dense evergreen shrub native to central and southern Japan (Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu, Okinawa) and Korea, widely planted across zones 7-10 as a fast-growing hedge and screen. Its glossy, dark-green waxy foliage and tolerance of heavy clipping make it a workhorse for privacy planting, and fragrant white panicles in late spring to early summer are a bonus. The honest catch is threefold: all parts - especially the purple-black berries that ripen from autumn into winter - are toxic to people, dogs, cats, and horses; the plant has become a documented invasive across roughly 11 south-eastern US states where it escapes cultivation into woodland edges; and its dense, fast growth can outcompete surrounding plantings if not clipped regularly.

A dense, fast-growing hedging shrub from Japan, often sold as California privet even though, as the Missouri Botanical Garden points out, it is native to Japan. It is the familiar clipped privet hedge of older suburbs: glossy oval leaves, held through mild winters and dropped in cold ones, stiff spikes of heavily scented, dull white flowers in early summer, and black berries in fall. Birds spread the seed, and it has escaped gardens and naturalised in much of the eastern United States; Connecticut lists it as potentially invasive. Privet berries and leaves are poisonous. Check your local invasive list before planting, and consider a native shrub instead.